I exported my recordings from Audacity to Windows in both MP3 and WAV formats but when I burn a CD it plays on my computer but not in my CD player, The radio/CD player combo unit will display the number of tracks on the CD but when I play them, there is no sound with either file format. Using Verbatim CD-R discs. Any ideas? (I have already tried a slower speed and have tried to burn in both Windows Media Player and with CyberLink Power2Go and have tried an external CD/DVD drive also)
There are two ways to burn a CD and that’s determined by your burning application.
Audio CDs don’t have “computer files”, and that’s why the have to be “ripped” (1) and you can’t just copy the files to your computer.
If you burn an MP3 or WAV file directly to a CD without configuring it to make an audio CD, you get a data CD, just like if you copy and Excel or Word file to a CD. Most regular CD players can’t play WAV or MP3 files, but some car stereos can and most DVD & Blu-Ray players can.
(1) DVDs & Blu-Rays have computer files, but they are in special formats and copy protected.
I seem to remember back in the day when you inserted a disc you got a pop up asking “Format disc?” I thought that those days were gone since I have not encountered that pop up for years. So if I insert a disc, click on the drive, and choose “Format” from the drop down menu when it’s finished formatting if I try to burn I get an error message saying “please insert a blank disc”. I’m obviously missing a step here, correct?
I just checked the file format of the discs I’m trying to burn to and they are CDFS. Does CDFS not play in a regular CD player? I ripped one to Power2Go selecting WAS as format but it still doesn’t play and still says CDFS in the properties .
No, that’s not it. 
It’s sometimes called Red Book or CDA (CD Audio) or CD-DA (CD Digital Audio).
I don’t have Power2Go but I found this:
There is some information in the Audacity Manual about burning with Windows Media Player or iTunes
I use ImgBurn with a Cue Sheet. It’s a little extra work to create the cue sheet, and there is the potential of getting it wrong. But I start with a known good one, or one of the examples, and then edit it with Windows Notepad.
A cue sheet gives you complete control over the layout, so for example, you can burn a CD from one big WAV file (like a concert) and put the track markers wherever you want.
Thanks! I think I just have a spindle of really old CD-R’s that may have corrupted due to weather, being stored in a dingy basement and any number of other evil things. I’ll try again with fresh new cd-r’s. Thanks for your help.
The dye later on a CD is a cousin to color photography. Don’t leave either one on the dashboard in the car on a sunny day. Yes, they get old.
The dye later isn’t on the shiny side. It’s on the label side just under the title. If you press too hard with a scratchy pen, you can destroy the music.
The music is a “stream” at 44100, 16-bit, Stereo. That’s where the oddball format came from. That’s the smallest sampling rate where nobody can tell what you did.
There are no “files”. There is an index track that tells the player where to go in the ocean of continuous data to find a song. And no, Music CDs don’t carry song titles. Too wasteful.
The addressing goes from inside out. Not outside in like a record.
This keeps wandering back to a bum CD player. I have a stand-alone CD player that won’t play anything unless the disk, format, and burn is perfect. I use it as Quality Control before I send a burn to a client.
Bad disks just stopped coming back after I did that.
Koz
Windows Media Player should accept 44100, 16-bit Stereo, music files. Tell it to make an Audio CD. I don’t remember what the upper end for performance minutes is.
Do Not Use the Default Super-High Burn Speed. That’s a common assumption and I’ve never had that work right. Start with a really low speed and work up or down. I don’t remember what my default was. I can go look.
Koz
It’s 74 minutes. From fuzzy memory that’s the duration of one of the developers’ favorite operas.
There are ways to fudge and fake and get longer ones, but you can mess with that after you get it working.
I’m burning a Music CD at 12X speed. We’ll see how it goes. The burner claims up to 30X. I don’t believe it.
Koz
That’s how it works.
I asked of the conductor where this ol’ train was bound.
The conductor punched my ticket and whispered Memphis Town.
But there ain’t no train to Memphis any more…
Koz
At least we didn’t end up with Philips’s oddball 44.056 kHz, 14-bit format.
There’s no shortage of formats. The video people dropped all this as a hot rock. They use 48000. The people crossing video and audio routinely get burned with this.
“Why can’t I use my web cam microphone?”
Koz
…
You got to take the highway when you go…
Koz
Did they get anybody to follow them? I wonder if they made a car player.
Koz
Not that I know of. It was what they were competing against Sony with at the time the CD format was being developed (in 1980ish). I’m just glad that Sony won out in this case.
Now that CDs are more or less dead I’ve switched to 48 kHz as my preferred sample rate. (Since video uses 48 kHz vs CD’s 44.1 kHz, is this a case of Video Killed the Radio Star all over again?)
Thanks everyone, problem solved! Tried playing the CD in my daughter’s car cd player and it plays perfect. My problem was my old radio/cd player combo, not burning the discs.
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And now we meet in an abandoned studio.
We hear the playback and it seems so long ago….
The CD player in my truck recently crashed. I remember changing the player last time.
Start at the rear bumper. Unscrew the license plate…
Koz
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